News & announcements from the ‘Blog’ category
MOOCs, retention, and more challenges
Wednesday, May 15th, 2013Recent stories about MOOCS and San Jose State were in the news. San Jose State professors pushed back against EdX, one of the top three providers of MOOCS. An open letter from Professors at San Jose State to Professor Michael Sandel to request he take a stand on how some public universities may use MOOCs…
Grading, machine scoring and more
Monday, April 29th, 2013Recently the news has described the challenges to machine scored essays. One group suggests that machine scoring can not do what human professors and teachers can accomplish. Others suggest that robo-readers can accurately score essays and writing. Other articles discuss the role of humans in grading differently, and more inclusively. Another sources discusses the pros/cons…
MOOCs: Retention rates, challenges, and more
Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013A recent NY Times article, reminds us that MOOCs {Massive Open Online Courses] and their usefulness for credit bearing degree programs still may remain illusive. While the article rates the usefulness, the interaction with the ‘star’ professors, the variability in course content, the retention rate is still dismal. The author also indicates for many of the MOOCs he…
Dealing with Trauma
Thursday, April 18th, 2013In the wake of Boston Marathon tragedy, some of these resources may be helpful for discussions in classes or offices. The American Psychological Association provides a series of helpful strategies on a number of topics and is easily searchable. The APA has several suggestions for Managing Traumatic Stress. Other sources, such as Massachusetts Government help…
Understanding Vets in Community Colleges
Monday, April 8th, 2013Professional Development Day for GCC faculty and Staff, will be held on Friday April 12. Agenda Staff Development Day April 12, 2013 Program will be in the GCC Dining Commons 8:30 am – 4:00 pm. From military service to college campus life: Reintegration challenges for returning veterans
Competency Based Education
Monday, March 25th, 2013Will competency based education do away with the traditional credit hour? Recently the federal government approved a liberal arts associate degree fully competency based program at Southern New Hampshire University and other locations. Others explore how such a change may influence the traditions of 15 week semesters and three credit courses. Colleges are beginning to…
CC Online courses: widens achievement gap
Thursday, February 28th, 2013More recent reports suggest that online courses may widen the achievement gap. Online students are less likely to achieve a degree. Black students, male students, younger students, and students with lower grade-point averages are most susceptible to attrition in online courses. Skill sets of students enrolling in online courses. Columbia University’s Community College Research Center researchers examined 500,000 courses…
MOOC Crashes
Monday, February 18th, 2013As MOOCs [Massive Open Online Courses] expand and are absorbed/developed at colleges and universities, inevitably technology will be challenged. Early in February, a MOOC on how faculty can set up an online course crashed. Courseera who had over 40,000 faculty enrolled, had to suspend the course after only 5 days. The explanation of a ‘design’ flaw in using Google Documents…
Rights in Online Courses
Monday, January 28th, 2013Recently HASTAC [Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Advance Collaboratory] published an online learner’s bill of rights and dealing with critiques of such a bill of rights. Another posting addresses the issues of online assignments in public sites, such as blogs, wikis and other forums. The issue of credit and enrollments for MOOCs [Massive Open Online Courses] has also been…
Syllabus Preparation and Lectures
Sunday, January 20th, 2013ProfHacker of the Chronicle of Higher Education regularly posts ideas, fixes, make-overs, and concrete suggestions for syllabus creation. Teaching resolutions for the new semester provides some syllabus guidelines. Previous posts on Teaching and Learning site also provide other syllabus ideas. A new view of the potential value of multiple choice exams is also provided. For those…
